Six steps to organising your GMB Health and Safety Inspection: including model letters, checklists, and report forms to help you.
Health and Safety Resources
Make Time for Safety Inspections
Six steps to organising your GMB Health and Safety Inspection: including model letters, checklists, and report forms to help you.
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Description
All GMB Health and Safety representatives are legally entitled to inspect their workplace, to talk to members and non-members, identify hazards and propose protective measures.
Inspections are a great way of making GMB visible in the workplace. It gives our Health and Safety reps a great way to have access to every member, to identify issues that matter and to build and sustain momentum.
This short guide goes through the main steps in the inspection process.
Step one: Get the inspection in your diary
Approach the relevant manager and explain that you want to carry out an inspection. Emphasise that we want to work together with management to improve safety for everyone.
Ideally you should be able to get the inspection agreed there and then.
If you face any obstruction from management, send them letter 1 notifying them of your intention to carry out an inspection. Make sure you clearly identify a start time, a date, and the area you want to inspect. You want management to accompany you on part of this inspection, but you also need the opportunity to talk with members privately and in confidence as they may be anxious of raising issues in front of management.
Step two: Get the information you need
As part of planning the inspection you will want to have access to relevant documentation such as risk assessments, accidents reports and safe systems of work. A co-operative management should provide them for you. Again, if you face obstruction use the letter 2 template and make sure you list the documents you want.
Step three: Prepare your Inspection
To help you prepare, and to make sure you cover certain key areas you might want to use the GMB workplace inspection checklist. However, do not restrict yourself to this list as it is just a guide. You might want to draw up your own list of key things to check out, and always remember that the most important part of the inspection is to talk to members and non-members about the safety issues that matter to them.
Step four: Don’t be shy to ask people to join
Inspections are a great opportunity to recruit and build the GMB. Always make sure you have membership forms available and remember the url to join online: JOIN
Step five: Identify what needs doing
When you have identified the main hazards and what we want done to protect members, make sure you write it down on the inspection report form and have a log of when you’ve handed it in to management. Ideally you want to arrange a debrief with management after the inspection at which you can give them this form and get them to sign for it.
If you’ve identified a very serious legal breach (such as unguarded machinery) then issue report form 2 which specifies the legal breach and the measures required. Again, get management to sign for it. If in doubt, consult with other reps your officer and the Regional Safety officer.
Make sure you display the inspection report forms on your workplace noticeboard, this allows GMB members and non-members to see what issues we are raising with management. Also put the report forms on any other platforms you use to communicate with members and non-members.
Step six: Follow up, check measures, and maintain momentum.
Follow up on the inspection by re-inspecting to check any control measures are working. Again, try to get this agreed amicably with management. However, if you face resistance issue Letter 3 adding in the relevant details to the template.
As part of the inspection you must talk privately with your members about whether they are happy about what’s been done. After the re-inspection make sure you issue a report form and display it prominently. That way everyone is kept informed about your ongoing GMB campaign.
If you and your members are not happy with the control measures, then organise a meeting win the workplace to plan next steps and mobilise.
Inspecting accidents
As a GMB safety rep you have the right to investigate the causes of accidents. Whenever there is a serious accident at work, management should release you to inspect the scene and investigate.
Try to get an agreement that this will happen. However, if you face resistance and obstruction use this template letter. Make sure every member knows that they should not interviewed as part of a management investigation without their GMB workplace organiser present.